In Praise of France
Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader thought he would shock you with that title line. A line in your Maximum Leader's last post caused his good friend the Big Hominid to write him a longish e-mail missive about the French. And while the details of that message are not important, it did cause your Maximum Leader to think more about what he does love about France and the French.
There is, as many may know, a lot to love about France and the French. Alas, their elected officials and policy stance is wrongheaded (to your Maximum Leader at least); but that doesn't condemn a whole nation.
Your Maximum Leader loves the French and France for their food. He once had an old French lady teach him how to properly scramble eggs. It was a perfect exercise in what makes French cooking so good. First you let the eggs warm to just below room temp. Then you break them gently into a very large bowl. She fished out the yokes with a spoon and put them into another bowl. She would then whip the whites until they were nearly ready for meringue. Then she would beat the yokes in the other bowl. She would combine the yokes and whites together with a little fresh cream in the big bowl. Then came salt and pepper. Then she would melt butter in a huge iron skillet. Then when the butter was melted (but not brown - watch the temperature) she would add the eggs to the skillet. She would be careful to lift and fold the eggs as they cooked. She didn't beat them in the skillet. When the cooking was nearly done and the eggs were still very moist she would take a spoon and give them a nice firm stir to break up the peices. Then they were ready for plating and eating.
Those are some damned good eggs.
Of course, the fact that one would have to clean up two bowls, a skillet, two whisks, a rubber scraper/spatula, and a metal spoon (not to mention a plate and whatever cutlery you were eating with) after making scrambled eggs is a bit much. Also, the whole process took about 25 mins. (All that beating and such is done by hand.)
That is a lot for some eggs. But once again, those eggs are damned good.
Excursus: This technique was duplicated by another elderly woman your Maximum Leader once knew. She spend a good portion of her life in France. She was actually Russian by birth. Her family fled the Revolution (nobility). They lived off the money they got from selling the family jewels in Paris. She stayed in Paris until the Germans came in WW2. Then she went to Switzerland. After the war, she went to Italy. Then back to Paris. Then to London. There she met a handsome American whom she married and they moved back to the greater Washington DC area. But that is another story...
True French cuisine takes time. And patience. And technique. Speaking of cuisine, your Maximum Leader has a great Coq au Vin recipe he is waiting to try in true French fashion. You see, he's done this recipe before with store bought chicken. But to do it in true French fashion (country fashion that is - as Coq au Vin is a country dish) he needs an old, sinewy, thin bird. The type you don't find in a grocery store. (Lucky for your Maximum Leader he knows of a farmer who has some old birds lying around on his farm...) If he started this Coq au Vin recipe today, it would be ready for eating on Friday night. You can't rush these things...
Therein is something important about French cuisine. You can't rush it. Perhaps the French have learned something about living and life that we in the US have not. We have sacrificed quality for convenience in many cases. Fast food (since we're talking food here) is a great example of this. What do you really gain by eating at McDonalds, Burger King, or Wendy's? You gain some time (supposedly). Time you can use doing something else. But do you really do anything meaningful with that time? Probably not. So rather than spending an hour or so eating a good meal, you'll spend 20 mins eating crap so that you can spend 40 minutes watching TV or surfing internet porn? Your Maximum Leader is guilty of trading for time when he eats, but he tries not to make a habit of it. Perhaps the cultural glorification of food in France is an outward sign of the French being more at ease about life. Sure the French are not going to be outpacing Americans in productivity any time soon, but have they realized a certain quality of living should be reflected upon? Perhaps they have.
Carry on.
There is, as many may know, a lot to love about France and the French. Alas, their elected officials and policy stance is wrongheaded (to your Maximum Leader at least); but that doesn't condemn a whole nation.
Your Maximum Leader loves the French and France for their food. He once had an old French lady teach him how to properly scramble eggs. It was a perfect exercise in what makes French cooking so good. First you let the eggs warm to just below room temp. Then you break them gently into a very large bowl. She fished out the yokes with a spoon and put them into another bowl. She would then whip the whites until they were nearly ready for meringue. Then she would beat the yokes in the other bowl. She would combine the yokes and whites together with a little fresh cream in the big bowl. Then came salt and pepper. Then she would melt butter in a huge iron skillet. Then when the butter was melted (but not brown - watch the temperature) she would add the eggs to the skillet. She would be careful to lift and fold the eggs as they cooked. She didn't beat them in the skillet. When the cooking was nearly done and the eggs were still very moist she would take a spoon and give them a nice firm stir to break up the peices. Then they were ready for plating and eating.
Those are some damned good eggs.
Of course, the fact that one would have to clean up two bowls, a skillet, two whisks, a rubber scraper/spatula, and a metal spoon (not to mention a plate and whatever cutlery you were eating with) after making scrambled eggs is a bit much. Also, the whole process took about 25 mins. (All that beating and such is done by hand.)
That is a lot for some eggs. But once again, those eggs are damned good.
Excursus: This technique was duplicated by another elderly woman your Maximum Leader once knew. She spend a good portion of her life in France. She was actually Russian by birth. Her family fled the Revolution (nobility). They lived off the money they got from selling the family jewels in Paris. She stayed in Paris until the Germans came in WW2. Then she went to Switzerland. After the war, she went to Italy. Then back to Paris. Then to London. There she met a handsome American whom she married and they moved back to the greater Washington DC area. But that is another story...
True French cuisine takes time. And patience. And technique. Speaking of cuisine, your Maximum Leader has a great Coq au Vin recipe he is waiting to try in true French fashion. You see, he's done this recipe before with store bought chicken. But to do it in true French fashion (country fashion that is - as Coq au Vin is a country dish) he needs an old, sinewy, thin bird. The type you don't find in a grocery store. (Lucky for your Maximum Leader he knows of a farmer who has some old birds lying around on his farm...) If he started this Coq au Vin recipe today, it would be ready for eating on Friday night. You can't rush these things...
Therein is something important about French cuisine. You can't rush it. Perhaps the French have learned something about living and life that we in the US have not. We have sacrificed quality for convenience in many cases. Fast food (since we're talking food here) is a great example of this. What do you really gain by eating at McDonalds, Burger King, or Wendy's? You gain some time (supposedly). Time you can use doing something else. But do you really do anything meaningful with that time? Probably not. So rather than spending an hour or so eating a good meal, you'll spend 20 mins eating crap so that you can spend 40 minutes watching TV or surfing internet porn? Your Maximum Leader is guilty of trading for time when he eats, but he tries not to make a habit of it. Perhaps the cultural glorification of food in France is an outward sign of the French being more at ease about life. Sure the French are not going to be outpacing Americans in productivity any time soon, but have they realized a certain quality of living should be reflected upon? Perhaps they have.
Carry on.
posted by The Maximum Leader at 7/06/2005 03:22:00 PM
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